WOVEN / Events / Sat 08 Jun 2019

Threads of Life: Clare Hunter in conversation

Join textile artist, curator and author of Threads of Life Clare Hunter in conversation with Dr Claire Barber, Senior Lecturer in Textiles at University of Huddersfield as they discuss a history of sewing and embroidery, told through the stories of the men and women, over centuries and across continents, who have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances.

‘Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning our place in the world, voicing our identity, sharing something of ourselves with others and leaving the indelible evidence of our presence in stitches held fast by our touch.’

Claire’s first novel, Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power and politics and takes us from Mary, Queen of Scots in captivity to the mentally and physically damaged soldiers returning home after World War One, from the grieving mothers of the disappeared in 1970s Argentina to nineteenth century tailors whose pictorial quilts campaigned for reform and feminists in 1980s America, in an evocative and moving book about the need we all have to tell our story.

Clare Hunter has been a banner-maker, community textile artist and textile curator for over twenty years and established the community enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow. She was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award with a story published in its 2017 Annual. She was also a recipient of a Creative Scotland Award in 2016. She lives near Stirling, and Threads of Life is her first book and was BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 4-8 February.

Claire BarberClaire is an artist and senior lecturer in Textiles at the University of Huddersfield. Claire works across the fields of socially engaged and site responsive textiles, with some of her large-scale artworks shown in numerous exhibitions internationally. With a first degree in Textile Design and an MA from the Royal College of Art (Fine Art Department) she approaches textiles with both fine art and design knowledge and understanding. In 2016 she received a PhD (by Publication) for a body of work titled ‘Cloth in Action: The Transformative Power of Cloth in Communities’, that hoped to show how textile arts are at the forefront of an emerging socially engaged movement that involve others in a reimagining of their place in society.

For more information and details of how to book please follow the link below. Tickets £5-£7